Principal's Newsletter, Week 4, Term 3, 2015

posted Aug 16, 2015, 1:38 AM by Ms. Connors

Zane Zhang of year
12 (pictured to the left) has just returned from the International Chemistry
Olympiad held this year in Baku, Azerbaijan. All members of the Australian team
achieved a Bronze medal this year. Well done Zane.

Congratulations
Upeka Nanayakkara, Stephanie Wu and Abina Vishni Ravindran of Year 12 who have
been chosen as three of the winners of the 2015 John Lincoln Youth Community
Service Awards. This award recognises Upeka, Stephanie and Vishni’s sustained
community service over many years.

Congratulations to Daniel Selvadurai (9) who won the
Zone Legacy Public Speaking competition run by the NSW Department of Education.

Congratulations to
Spencer Hu, Myurie Wijayakumar, Edward Jiang and Eva Sinha of Year 11 who
competed in and won the Metro Debating Cup last Friday. This is the 3rd
year in a row JRAHS have won this regional cup.

Congratulations to our Australian Informatics Team who
scored a Gold, a Silver and two Bronze medals at the International Olympiad in
Informatics (IOI), which finished in Kazakhstan on 1 August.

Three-time Olympian, Ishraq Huda of year 12, performed brilliantly and
came fifth in the world. This followed his perfect score and equal first place
last year. Fellow multi-selected Olympian, Michael Chen, brought home his third
Silver. Newcomers ninth-grader Jerry Mao from Melbourne and 11th
grader Declan McDonnell from Sydney both earned Bronze medals. A fantastic
effort! Well done Ishraq.

Each student had to program solutions to three
problems on each of two days: two 5-hour sessions. A live scoreboard recorded
individual progress and was able to be viewed across the world. Some 322
students from 83 countries competed to write the perfect solutions.

Our Students
(pictured above) enjoying time together on the weekend at the RICE Rally. A
number of students performed at the event.

Today I read a
newspaper article that criticized a Principal of one of our fellow selective
high schools for putting student wellbeing as a top priority for a child’s
education. Our School Plan and priorities also emphasises the need to educate
the whole child and work towards nurturing the gifts of our students into
talents. Student wellbeing has to be a priority of all of us. We aim to implement our
wellbeing and leadership curriculum to ensure the positive education of all
students. Working together we
need to ensure our children become resilient, happy and successful. Many Selective
High Schools,including
us, follow the principles of positive psychology. I was very disappointed that this newspaper
article implied that “anxiety” is a necessary part of success.

At our next
Community of James Ruse Meeting we will host Dr Carmel Harrington. Last year Dr
Harrington spoke to our staff on the importance of sleep and the sleep trends
of adolescents. We found her lecture extremely valuable and felt it is very
important for parents to hear. The next CoJR meeting will be held on Tuesday 25th August at 6.30pm.

Dr Carmel Harrington has been working in the world of sleep for nearly 20
years. A former lawyer and educator she has a PHD in Sleep Medicine from Sydney
University and consults with companies and educational institutions both here
and overseas on sleep health.

An internationally recognised sleep expert, Dr Harrington is amazed at the
seemingly little importance given to sleep. Research shows that sleep is
critical to our physical and mental health and is fundamental to our ability to
think and learn. Emerging research clearly shows that sleeping well is a key component
to optimal performance and health and if we want to be at the top of our game
we need to ensure we get the best sleep possible.

Dr Harrington is the Managing Director of Sleep for Health and an Honorary
Research Fellow at the Children's Hospital Westmead. She is a founding member
of the Sleep Health Foundation and a member of the Australasian Sleep
Association. She has written two books "The Sleep Diet" (MacMillan
Press 2012) and "The complete guide to a good night's sleep"
(MacMillan Press 2014). More information can be found at http://www.sleepforhealth.net.au/ .

The University of
Sydney has kindly offered to join us in offering a leadership award to two Year
12 students. All students of year 12 have been emailed details. The
applications are due immediately after their trial examinations and must be
given to Mr Jason Driscoll, Careers Advisor.

The Public Education Foundation has just opened its major round of 2016
scholarships for students in public schools. The scholarships focus on
providing targeted support to students who display high potential but who could
benefit from assistance and support as they progress in their education.

Applications for the scholarships listed below close Monday 12 October
2015

Our Year 10 Preliminary PDHPE class have
returned from their three day excursion to the snow – having a fabulous time
skiing and snowboarding. The students all behaved impeccably at all times and
were a credit to our school and their parents. We offer our huge thanks to Ms
Novotni, Mr Low and Ms Palmer for organising and supervising the excursion

Week
5A HSC Trials
continue

Monday August 10th ASOE Biology

Year
9 Police talk

Tuesday August 11th Year 11 Economics assessments
in class

Wednesday August 12th ASOE Physics

Thursday August 13th 9T High Resolves Project

Friday August 14th Year 9 High Resolves Working
Session

Week
6B 3-on-3 Soccer all
week

Tuesday August 18th Year 7 Meeting Period 2

Year
10 Study Skills

Wednesday August 19th Year 10 Agriculture Excursion

Thursday August 20th Mother’s Club AGM

Have a wonderful
week.

Megan Connors

Principal

Maths Faculty News

August sees Maths
as the faculty of the month. We started off with all the school, including some
year 12 who took time out of their trials, completing the Australian
Mathematics Competition.

Next week and for
the rest of the month there will be a display in the library of student work;
the games they have made and the dream houses they have designed. My thanks to
Ms Samy-Pullay who has worked with the students on these projects as part of
our enrichment program.

The UNSW mathematics competition results have arrived and are listed below:

All these students
will receive a letter inviting them to the presentation of prizes to be held on
Friday 11th September at UNSW.

Some mathematical questions to think about

This was one of
the questions that appeared on both the junior and senior UNSW exam

1. Find a five
digit number which equals to 45 times the product of its digits.

This appeared on
the intermediate AMC

2. At Berracan
station, northbound trains arrive every three minutes starting at noon and
finishing at midnight while southbound trains arrive every five minutes
starting at noon and finishing at midnight. Each day, I walk to Berracan Station
at a random time in the afternoon and wait for the first train in either
direction. On average, how many seconds should I expect to wait.